Intelligent Research Design

A Guide for Beginning Researchers in the Social Sciences

Bob Hancké

Essential reading for anyone embarking on research in the social sciences

A short, inexpensive guide to research that students can use alongside more established texts

Addresses problems of research design in terms which are recognisable to students

Clear sections on how to identify a good research question, present papers, and discuss papers

Intelligent Research Design

A Guide for Beginning Researchers in the Social Sciences

Bob Hancké

Description

This book offers advice to doctoral researchers and graduate and advanced undergraduate students on how to embark on their research. Based on a decade of teaching early-stage researchers in the social sciences at the LSE and other universities, and written with the central problems of beginning researchers in mind, Bob Hancké guides them through the process of thinking about the links between theory, cases and data, and to do so in a way that helps to turn their initial plausible ideas into convincing arguments. This lively book, deliberately jargon-free and with a hands-on, pragmatic approach to research design, addresses the problems that research students face--or ignore, often at their peril--in the course of their first few years. Its central message is that
research is a complex and iterative process in which researchers construct every relevant part of their project with one goal in mind: make a persuasive point. They define the question they ask and the debate they engage, construct their cases and data to answer that question, and write it up as an argument that brings out the strengths of their research design. It addresses such key issues as statistical versus configurational approaches, time in social science research, different types of case studies and comparative research, and a critical approach to data. The Appendix gives tips on presenting and discussing papers, and on crafting research proposals.

Intelligent Research Design

A Guide for Beginning Researchers in the Social Sciences

Bob Hancké

Table of Contents

Introduction1. Research in the Social Sciences2. Constructing a Research Design3. Constructing Case Studies and Comparisons4. Constructing Data5. Writing Up Your Research6. For the RoadAppendix: Participating in the Profession A. Presenting a PaperB. Discussing a PaperC. Research ProposalsBibliography

Intelligent Research Design

A Guide for Beginning Researchers in the Social Sciences

Bob Hancké

Author Information

Bob Hancké is a Reader in European Political Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He published Large Firms and Institutional Change (OUP 2002), Beyond Varieties of Capitalism: Conflict, Contradiction and Complementarities in the European Economy (co-edited with Martin Rhodes and Mark Thatcher (OUP 2007), and Debating Varieties of Capitalism: A Reader, (OUP 2009). His main interests are: the comparative political economy of advanced capitalist societies, institutions and macro-economic policy in EMU, comparative labour relations and trade union studies.